Episode 30: From Prospect to Powerhouse - Offshore Wind in Germany

Offshore wind currently produces around 6% of all electricity fed into Germany's public grid, but by 2045, that figure will need to be quadrupled. It’s a heady but achievable challenge. What started out 15 years ago as a couple of experimental facilities is now a major pillar of Germany’s conversion to renewable energy. We look back and ahead at the biggest changes, challenges, and innovations – and explore how business opportunities are evolving in this dynamic sector.

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Our Guests

Simon Hagemann | © Simon Hagemann

Simon Hagemann is Head of Pipeline Development at Swedish utility Vattenfall, the company behind Germanys first offshore wind farm.

Markus Nölke | © Markus Nölke

Markus Nölke is Managing Director of WAB, a nationwide network for the wind energy sector, representing around 250 companies and research institutes across the wind, maritime, and emerging hydrogen industries.

Transcript of this episode

[sound of wind turbine, wind, stormy sea]

Presenter: [talking loudly]
Pretty windy out here! This is what it sounds like about 70 kilometers off the German coast, near the island of Borkum on the Dutch border. One of Germany’s largest offshore wind farms has taken shape in recent years out here in the North Sea. With 83 towering turbines across 75 square kilometers, it generates enough electricity to power around 900,000 households!

[sound, gust of wind]

Presenter: [talking loudly]
Okay, it's getting a bit too stormy here. Let’s head back to the studio.

[sound ends]

Welcome to INTO Germany, the German business podcast, brought to you by the international business promotion agency Germany Trade and Invest. I’m your host Kelly O’Brien. 
In today’s episode, we’re taking a closer look at Germany’s offshore wind farms. The occasion? A 15th anniversary: Back in 2010, Germany’s very first offshore wind farm – Alpha Ventus – was officially commissioned..

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
Which is a 60 megawatt wind farm that started commercial operation in 2010. 60 megawatts is nowadays really small. 15 years ago it was about I would said experimental exploration in offshore wind while nowadays we definitely achieved commercial scale and a high degree of standardization when it comes to offshore wind.

Simon Hagemann is Head of Pipeline Development at Vattenfall, the international company headquartered in Sweden which operates Alpha Ventus. Over the past 15 years, the wind power industry has changed rapidly – from a few pioneering test facilities to a critical pillar in the transition to renewably produced energy. At the beginning of 2025, there were more than 1,600 offshore wind turbines. They had an annual electricity output of 26 terrawatt hours. That’s almost 6% of electricity fed into Germany's public grid. Offshore wind will account for one-fifth of total electricity generation in Germany by 2045.
Riffgrund 3, the wind farm we heard at the beginning is scheduled to be connected to the power grid next year. Not far away, German-based EnBW is building a flagship offshore wind farm to generate power for approximately 1.1 million German households. And earlier this year,  Vattenfall announced it was building not one but two new wind farms: Nordlicht 1 and 2 with an output of 6 terawatt hours of electricity per year.
Before we dive into the details with Simon Hagemann, let's take a step back and get an overview of the industry. Markus Nölke is Managing Director of WAB, a nationwide network for the wind energy sector, representing around 250 companies and research institutes across the wind, maritime, and emerging hydrogen industries.
Hi Markus, thanks for joining us on the podcast. So what’s been up in German offshore wind in the past 15 years?

Markus Nölke, WAB

A lot has happened in the last 15 years and the numbers speak for themselves. On April 27, 2010, Alpha Ventus became the first offshore wind farm to go online. It consisted of 12 turbines with a capacity of 5 megawatts each, for a total of 60 megawatts. In summary, within 15 years, the number of turbines has increased from 12 to 1,639, and the capacity from 60 megawatts to 9.2 gigawatts. But the history of offshore wind development is of course much older than 15 years and there was also a lot of skepticism beforehand as to whether it was feasible and sensible both technically and economically. Today we can say, yes offshore wind is a success story.

Presenter:
The trend is set to continue: By 2030, installed capacity is expected to reach 30 gigawatts. Then 50 gigawatts by 2035 and 70 by 2045. Offshore wind will play a key role in electricity supply and green hydrogen production. What will enable this growth?

Markus Nölke, WAB
Ultimately, it comes down to political decisions, such as the goal of climate neutrality. Germany wants to become climate neutral by 2045 and the EU by 2050. And then, at the latest, with Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, most people have come to realize that we would be well advised to become as energy independent as possible. I think these are really two milestones of great significance. Politicians sometimes find it difficult, but after scaling back the expansion targets, they have been raised several times up to 70 gigawatt in 2045. It can be said that in the end the industry has given even higher expansion targets than it has been demanded from politicians. When does something like that ever happen? Fortunately, the new coalition agreement is sticking to the expansion target for offshore wind energy.

Presenter:
Germany’s coalition government between conservatives and Social Democrats also aims to speed up permitting, align grid development with wind farm expansion, strengthen European cooperation, and introduce a national strategy with clearly defined annual build-out goals. Do you think that will be enough to drive progress?

Markus Nölke, WAB
On the one hand, it's good that in the coalition agreement it's mentioned that the new government will continue the expansion of the renewable energies and the offshore wind energy. But I think it is very important, especially for the associations like the WAB that we repeat this many times to the politicians because one is what is mentioned in the coalition agreement and the other side is the reality. So this is no guarantee that this will happen, what is mention in the coalition agreement, but it's good that it is mentioned there significantly.

Presenter:
Are the existing frameworks ready for the planned expansion?

Markus Nölke, WAB
Of course, there may be challenges in some areas, keyword skilled workers, for example, but overall I would say yes. The current challenges are more related to economic efficiency, raw material prices are very high, especially for steel, and there's a strong competitive pressure from China, for example.

Presenter:
Regions like Rostock, Sassnitz or Bremerhaven, where WAB has its head offices, used to rely on shipbuilding. How has offshore wind helped transform these economies?

Markus Nölke, WAB
I think Bremerhaven is a good example, not because we have our office here, but because when the offshore wind industry took off in the beginning of the century, many companies – and I speak about manufacturing companies – settled in Bremerhaven, creating several thousand jobs. Like Bremerhaven, Rostock is also an important shipbuilding location and we hope that some of the converter platforms that need to be built will also be built here in German shipyards. This will create many jobs in the long term and give the regions a further boost. We must ensure that we bring more added value back to Germany. 
Fortunately, there are now a number of positive examples, such as steel wind in Nordenham or Siemens in Cuxhaven and Titan Wind in Cuxhaven, or EEW and Liebherr in Rostock. That is why we are repeatedly calling on politicians to give the industry reliability. The future converter platforms with a capacity of 2 gigawatts needs investments of 2 billion and many small and medium sized companies must be involved and they can't finance these huge investments and so they need strong support from the political side.

Presenter:
Offshore wind is not just turbines at sea — it involves a complex value chain from engineering and logistics to maintenance and decommissioning. Where do you see opportunities for foreign companies to get involved and how can they partner with German players?

Markus Nölke, WAB
Most of our members are international and I don't see any expertise which we have not here in Germany. I think it is more a question of cooperation because no country has the capacity to implement them on its own. We need here in Germany – due to our high expansion targets, the highest in Europe – we need the capacity and the support and the know-how of foreign companies and also as we are the leading country in the world or one of the leading countries in the world for the expansion of offshore wind energy, many other companies abroad need our experience and our know-how for the expansion of the wind energy in their own country. We at WAB try to support this through partnerships and trade fair appearances. These collaborations offer companies the opportunity to identify new suppliers or markets. For example, the Netherlands was a partner country for this year's Windforce Conference and last year it was Denmark. These two countries are particularly important because they also have ambitious expansion targets and attractive areas that could be important for Germany.

Presenter:
Before we end, let’s look ahead to 2040: Will Germany remain competitive in this international arena?

Markus Nölke, WAB
The industry must be able to rely on the expansion targets of 70 gigawatt by 2045 being maintained. The fact that this has been reaffirmed in the coalition agreement is an important sign. This is not just about a number but also about achieving climate targets and maximum energy independence. We will also see offshore electrolysis at least 10 offshore substations with 2 gigawatt, this is absolutely new. Drones for transport. Monitoring and surveillance of the facilities, not only from the air, but also underwater drones. Artificial intelligence will play a major role, for example, in service and maintenance, to name a few examples. And ultimately, hopefully, a lot of added value in Germany with many thousands of jobs and perhaps even things we can't even imagine right now.

Presenter:
Many thanks Markus, for this insight and the optimistic outlook.

Markus Nölke, WAB
We must be optimistic and we want to be optimistic.

Presenter: 
No arguing with that. We’ll speak shortly to Simon Hagemann from Vattenfall, the company behind what is currently Germany’s largest wind farm construction project. But first, let’s have a roundup of some German business stories:

NEWS

Start-Up Surge
1500 new start-ups were founded in the first six months of 2025. That’s a nine percent rise over the previous six months. And venture capital invested in fledgling companies in Germany rose to EUR 4 billion in the first half of 2025. It was a massive 45 percent year-on-year increase. The size of recent individual VC deals has also grown dramatically.

Blue Lion
American IT giants Nvidia and Hewlett-Packard Enterprises are teaming up to construct a supercomputer in Germany. Called the Blue Lion, it will be housed at the Leibniz Supercomputing Center (LRZ) in Garching near the Bavarian capital of Munich. It will be operational by 2027. Construction and the first years of operation will cost some EUR 250 million.

Curing Cancer
German company BioNTech – which shot to global prominence as an inventor of one of the main vaccines against Covid – has signed a EUR 111 billion agreement with US pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). The focus is a newly developed cancer medication called BNT327. The enormous deal underscores Germany’s prominence in cancer research. The European Patent Office lists Germany at the top of Europe in oncology patents.

David and Goliath
Fledgling German company Tado, which makes heating apps, has emerged an unlikely winner in a competition with no less than Google. The US colossus has announced it will no longer be making its Nest smart thermostats available on the European market, and recommended that customers using first-generation devices switch to Tado products. In March, Japanese electronics giant Panasonic invested EUR 30 million in the start-up.

And finally, Greentech Growth,
Germany’s Greentech sector grew by nearly five percent in terms of gross value added in 2023. That’s according to the recent GreenTech Atlas for Germany, published by the German Environment Agency and consultants Prognos. Germany ranks third in the world behind the US and China in Greentech patent filings.

And with that, we’re back at green technology in the form of German offshore wind power. We’re now joined by Simon Hagemann from Vattenfall. Simon, how would you describe the transformation of the industry over the past decade and a half? Earlier on, you said it was rather experimental…

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
When I say it was experimental exploration back then 15 years ago, I'm really referring to Alpha Ventus, which is a 60 megawatt wind farm. It used two different turbine types and two different foundation types, which then means that we required back then different installation vessels. We had different manufacturers. We had a different operational maintenance concepts and different technicians for these two turbines and foundations, which helped to learn a lot, but was definitely not the cheapest way to install and maintain a wind farm. Nowadays wind farms they are highly standardized. So they use all the same turbine types, the same foundation system, and a very standardized and lean operational approach as well.

Presenter:
From 60 to 1500 megawatts – 25 times the output it used to have. What drove this exponential growth?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
I would say Germany did a lot of things right when it comes to achieving milestones to enable offshore wind growth. I would say, three regulatory milestones were very helpful for offshore wind to grow. Firstly, it was also found in Alpha Ventus, that the state-guaranteed expansion of the grid infrastructure is key to success. And that is because it allows more wind farms to be connected to one offshore grid cable, which is more cost efficient than if every wind farm developer does its own grid connection. It gives a lot of certainty to the projects that the grid is provided at a certain point in time. Secondly, long-term offshore wind targets were introduced through the Renewable Energy Sources Act in 2014. This target setting was super important because it basically marked the beginning of a very structured planning of offshore wind development and rolling out. And then the third regulatory milestone was in 2017, the adoption of the offshore wind energy act, or in German, Windseegesetz, which was quite a paradigm shift, I would say, in offshore wind sector. Because before that, developers just developed the projects and had a certain subsidy regime, they were certain to be able to benefit from. And after 2017, the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency, the BSH, introduced central auctions.

Presenter:
The Offshore Wind Energy Act made the process more centralized and competitive. That drove innovation and cost reductions and in turn made offshore wind more scalable and competitive overall. And of course, the auction system is tied to national expansion targets, which offers industry-wide visibility and planning certainty so that stakeholders can align their investments. Apart from the political framework – what were the biggest technical and operational changes over the past 15 years? You mentioned increased standardization – I guess the installation is a lot easier?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
I wouldn't necessarily say easier because in the German North Sea, the default foundation technology is the so-called monopiles. So it's basically a big long tube that is at the moment piled into the ground. And these tubes have a diameter of... something around 9 to 11 meters. And one topic that is something we very actively need to work with is the underwater noise, that comes along and increases significantly with the increased foundation types. And that is something that keeps the industry on its toes, I would say, and keeps innovation coming, where, for example, bubble curtains are used to reduce the noise that is then released from the point where the monopile is hammered into the ground to protect animals around.

Presenter:
When we look at how offshore wind farms have developed over the past 15 years—both in terms of turbine technology and overall operations—what would you say are the most significant changes or breakthroughs we've seen in that time?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall 
So turbine sizes grew significantly from 2010 onwards. And also mass production brought down costs towards the early 2020s quite significantly. In the early 2010s, we had turbine sizes of 3 to 5 megawatts in offshore wind. While today, routinely 15 megawatt turbines are being installed. We have two turbine manufacturers in Europe that are very active. It's Vestas and Siemens. And to give one example, the current Vestas flagship turbine, 15 megawatt turbine, has a rotor diameter of 236 meters and a swept area of 44,000 square meters. And that means that one blade is 150 meters long. The dimensions are so impressive if you're really close to it. At the same time, the turbines are not just bigger, they're also smarter. So they use a lot of sensors and electronics that enable to understand the condition of the turbine and do predictive maintenance, so to repair before something breaks, actually. And drones are also being used to inspect blades or underwater structures.

Presenter:
Can you walk us through the life cycle of such a project, starting from planning up until operation?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
First of all, it starts with a project being awarded in the auction, as mentioned before. But once that happened, we immediately go to work with the development. So there, we make the general technical design choices and optimize the layout of the wind farm. So we choose, basically, turbine, foundation, cable types in the wind farm so that the production is maximized and the cables required to connect the turbines are minimized in length. And we do the soil and site exploration also at the beginning in the development phase. We monitor the wind conditions, the wave heights, and the currents on the site. What we also have a close look at there is at the wildlife on site and also plan for measures to protect or enhance wildlife at the site. And then a key challenge in this phase is to achieve the permit. Without this permit, we can't move on to the delivery phase. So in the delivery, we do the detailed design of the wind farm based on all the insights and studies that we conducted during development. And once all contracts are prepared and we know exactly what the cost side is, what the revenue side is what the timeline is, when we have the permit in place, the grid connection in place, then we take the final investment decision. And as soon as manufacturing is done, which can take roughly a year or sometimes a year and a half, then installation on site starts. Once all turbines have been tested and the wind park has been tested and run stable for a few months, then the commercial operation starts.

Presenter:
How long does it take to complete such a project?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
That depends a little bit on the framework. So talking about Germany, the time to set it up from project award, so from winning it in an auction until full operation is five to seven years. Some of the key challenges we are currently having is supply chain bottlenecks. So a lot of countries have very ambitious 2030 offshore wind buildout targets, and the supply chain is, especially when it comes to vessels and turbines, not set up to deliver on these needs of the industry.

Presenter:
Beyond vessels and turbines, are there other parts of the value chain where you see major gaps? Where would more supply, innovation or competition be needed to keep up with demand?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall 
I think amongst the suppliers, there are probably two areas that are critical. So it's first of all the vessel availability. We've spoken already a bit about turbines getting bigger and bigger. And that also requires always new vessels, larger vessels to carry and ship the towers, then the cells, the blades off shore. We are not seeing the uptake yet that actually is required to achieve the 2030 buildout targets. The second area where I would say we could see more competition in Europe is in the turbine supply. We have two suppliers that are doing a really great job, Siemens and Vestas. But yeah, with supplies being overall limited and having only two suppliers at hand, there's first of all scarcity, and then secondly also more competition possible, I would say.

Presenter:
A while back – episode 20, for those who want to dive deeper – we explored the challenges of recycling green energy hardware. From your perspective, what’s the typical lifespan of an offshore turbine or wind farm?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
So nowadays we are typically talking about 30 to 35 years that are possible from a technological perspective. And then it depends on the country regulation, on the permit that the wind farm achieves. Where in Germany, per default, the permit is for 25 years only. And then with the possibility of an extension by further 5 to 10 years. But also the lifetime has, in that sense, improved significantly. Alpha Ventus became around 15 years old now and is in the decommissioning process, actually. The modern wind farms, they can last 30 to 35 years, which is also from an environmental perspective much better because, yeah, once the wind farm is erected, it should, of course, produce as much green electricity as possible.

Presenter:
For companies that are interested in working with you – what kinds of partners do you typically collaborate with along the offshore wind value chain? And how does that cooperation work in practice?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
We typically use service providers, for example, for site investigations. Later on, during the detailed design and procurement phase, we start collaborating big time because we start interacting with all the suppliers that eventually need to deliver and install the parts that the wind farm consists of. And that's typically also the point in time where we start having discussions with industry about electricity offtake. So, in Germany, the wind farms, especially Nordlicht, is subsidy-free, and it will sell its electricity output via power purchase agreements that also typically starts in parallel to the procurement phase. And at the same time, we sometimes also start talking to investors into the wind farm.

Presenter:
You operate across several markets. How do you see Germany’s offshore wind sector compared to the UK or the Nordics?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall 
So Germany and the UK are the two most ambitious offshore wind markets. in the European area and play a strategic role in the continent's green industrial transformation. So they are really the pulling horses in terms of offshore in Europe.

Presenter: 
One market that’s recently seen some setbacks the United States – offshore wind projects being paused or cancelled due to rising costs and regulatory challenges. Does this have any ripple effects on the German market, especially when we look at global investment dynamics?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall 
It's indeed true that recent project cancelations and regulatory uncertainty on US offshore projects together with the political pressure have caused a lot of uncertainty for developers being active there and that could indeed redirect capital from the US to Europe, but only if the markets here are prepared for that. I would say Germany has an opportunity here to attract investors. But at the same time, I would say that Germany can still improve on a few points and make the market even more attractive for investors from abroad. That's first of all that it should maintain the ambitious climate targets and at the time also hold industry in Germany, basic industry, talking especially about chemicals and steel and helping them to decarbonize, which in turn again increases the energy demand and makes the role of offshore wind more important in the system. We at Vattenfall, we are very much in favor of subsidy-free offshore wind projects where we market the electricity via power purchase agreements or directly on the market. And the market for power purchase agreements, for PPAs, could be further strengthened through credit guarantees to off-takers that are maybe smaller or have a lower credit worthiness so that we as the sellers of electricity are to some extent protected against bankruptcies of those off-takers.

Presenter:
Looking ahead 15 years into the future – what do you think Germany’s offshore wind landscape will look like?

Simon Hagemann, Vattenfall
So just looking back how much the industry has developed over the past 15 years, I would say in 2040 I believe that offshore wind will then be a very strong cornerstone and deliver homegrown electricity to support Germany's climate neutrality and energy independence. I would say we will also see major technological innovation and scale-ups, perhaps even 35 megawatts turbines being installed by then. And lastly, I would bet that artificial intelligence has massively changed how we distribute and match and optimize electricity in a fully decarbonized, decentralized system in Germany. And of course, Vattenfall will then also be a stable partner to enable fossil freedom.

[again a little bit wind, stormy sea]

Presenter:
Offshore wind is a cornerstone of Germany’s energy transition, and here's to another 15 successful, windy years. Many thanks to our guests, Markus Nölke from WAB and Simon Hagemann from Vattenfall. Before we go, we’d like to  tell you about HOW GERMANY WORKS.

HGW
As we’ve heard there are lots of German offshore wind parks, and many more in the works. But how are they licensed to operate? As Simon Hagemann mentioned, that's the responsibility of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency or BSH, located in the port cities of Hamburg and Rostock. Approval applications can be initiated online, and the German government has put forward legislation to simplify and accelerate the often lengthy procedures. Additionally, the BSH draws up plans for areas dedicated to wind farms in the North and Baltic Seas. Last but not least, the BSH’s library is home to the world's largest known collection of messages in a bottle, some 660 in number. And THAT’S how Germany works.

So that's OUR message in a bottle for this edition of INTO Germany. If you’re looking to hoist YOUR sails to the winds of change and explore opportunities in the German wind energy sector, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Germany Trade and Invest. We will be happy to advise you… all at no cost because we’re a government agency. Get in touch at gtai.com. We’re also keen on your opinions, suggestions and questions. Please leave a comment in your favorite podcast app or drop us a line. You’ll find all the details in our show notes.

[sound of wind turbine, wind, stormy sea]

Presenter: 
Well, I think the wind is picking back up — it’s time to head back to port. Thanks for listening. Till next time, keep it breezy, “Auf Wiederhören” and remember: Germany means business.